Losing your people in the middle makes for some good talking, but I think that it’s a little overrated. You need good people period. I don’t think that they’re going to be hurt that much defensive line-wise, as a matter of fact, I think their front four will be better overall than last year, when you consider the depth and everything. They need some guys that have been hurt to come along in there. But potentially, I think the front four next year, when you consider the defensive tackles, I think they could be pretty darn good this year, and they’re going to need to be.

It looks like they have some depth, and I think that Mahelona will really help out. Parys Haralson, I think he’s ready to have a fine year. I think a lot of people felt like he would have better year last year, but he’s still a young player. I’m still a guy that believes your junior and senior year are when you really need to step up and play good football.

I also think that they will get better play out of some guys that they hoped to get better play out of last year. If you look at the linebackers, they’ll miss Peace in the middle. He had a much better year than I thought he would. Someone is going to have to setpe up in there, but they have the people to do it. They have good linebackers.

Brooks needs to come along this year, he’s got to be a player somewhere. Both the Kevins have to play better than they did at times last year, but at times they played very well. I think another year there will help, and remember that both of those guys, Burnett and Simon, had really not practiced all that much.

That’s his position. I think Johnny (Chavis) would have moved him in there last year if two things had happened, one if Peace had played poorly and they didn’t feel they had the depth outside. With Mitchell and Brooks there, I think they can move him in there now.

I think that he will be a very fine player in there. Where he got hurt last year was on play-action pass out of the backfield in man coverage, and that is extremely hard to play as an outside linebacker. A middle linebacker doesn’t have that problem.

I think he’ll be a better MIKE linebacker than he was an outside linebacker, and I thought he was a pretty darn good outside backer. I just think he’s going to be an excellent, excellent player before he leaves Tennessee.

What position will Jason Allen end up at, safety or corner?

That’s kind of hard for me to say. I know that they feel like he can be a really excellent safety, but he’s already an excellent cornerback. I like his physical ability outside at cornerback, and again that’s easy for me to say, I don’t work with him everyday. It’s great to have a guy like that, he could probably play all four positions.

The way he came along at cornerback starting with the Alabama game, he was playing about as good as anyone in this league at the end of the year.

That’s going to be a tough decision for them. I think they’re probably going to try him a little bit inside with Campbell in there, and with those two guys at safety, they would be strong. I think Allen can play safety, and at the other spot, I think that Campbell is going to be a star there, I really do.

They lost some seniors in the secondary, but they still have some good players there and I think should be a good unit.

It may depend a little on how Jonathan Hefney looks when he gets here in the fall. I think that it’s probably easier to learn to play cornerback than it is to learn to play safety. Now that’s not to say that it’s easier to play it, but it’s easier to learn it in Tennessee’s system.

Hefney is really not a freshman either. He’s a year out of high school and I know that when they recruited him last year they thought that he would be very good.

I think they have some other guys back there that can play. I still think the guy that has the talent to be a hell of a player there at cornerback is Jonathan Wade. I really do. I don’t know that he wants to be, (I don’t know that he doesn’t), a good cornerback. That guy has professional football talent. I hope that he realizes that and wants to be a cornerback because he could certainly be a good one I believe.

I don’t think they’ll have to carry them. I think Tennessee’s going to be a really fine football team next year. I think they have a lot of things going for them. They certainly have some issues to address, but they have a lot of positives. One thing that is going to be a huge advantage for this team is the two kicking positions.

The kicking part of the kicking game should be excellent. We’ve got a guy who is the best punter in America, he proved that last year. We have a kicker in Wilhoit, who at the end of the year, you could really see his confidence grow. Take away those early misses, and he had a great year. He can really kick it. He started kicking the ball off into the end zone.

Where Tennessee needs to improve, and frankly with the talent there is no reason for it, but we need to get some big plays out of the return game. We haven’t had enough big plays there, we’ve been steady at times, particularly two years ago. But, there’s plenty of talent back there, and I think that’s going to big emphasis to get some big plays out of that.

Now offensively, really, if you look at last year, if you’re not careful you focus too long and too hard sometimes on statistics, which were not that good last year. But where they were really good was they did not turn the ball over much. They punted the ball away and gave the opponent the ball at the other end of the field. I thought they played pretty darn good team football last year, real good team football. Sometimes if you’re not careful, we as fans sit there and coaches can get caught up in it two, thinking well, we’re not throwing for that many yards or scoring many points, or whatever. But football is a game of field position and turnovers and Tennessee was very good in both those areas last year.

The thing that kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth about last season was the bowl game. Take that bowl game out, and you can’t do that, but this Tennessee team would have went 11-2, and would have done a great job to get there.

Now, what they’re going to have to figure out this year is can we get the same production out of our defense. Defense, I can tell you from coordinating, is a heck of a lot easier to play when the other team’s got the ball on their thirty instead of your thirty. Tennessee did a very good job of that last year, and I think they will utilize Colquitt punting the ball, and really get back to what they did last year, not turn the ball over.

If they can do what they did last year in terms of taking care of the football and get better at running and passing it, then they have a chance to be a really good football team. When you go into a year with good kickers, a good defense and a team that is not prone to turnovers, you have an opportunity to be a good football team, and I think that Tennessee will do that.

I always felt like when I was coaching it was invaluable. You get a chance to work with individuals there. And what’s important in spring is that they guys need to improve do so. Guys like Simon and Burnett could really use the reps that they can get in the spring and have missed in the past. They need to keep their guys as healthy as possible just to get them the reps they need.

Offensively, there’s no question that they need to use spring to start getting that running game fixed. Fixed may not be as good a word as fine-tuned.

They have the potential to do that, but it’s going to be a fine line. Coach Fulmer’s going to have to be really smart in thinking about how they’re going to practice. They’re certainly going to have to hit more than they have in the past, team-wise. And he’ll have to be smart on how he does that.

I think that if errs one way or the other, he’s probably going to err on the side of a little bit more contact this year than he has in the past and he had more last year than he has had. Tennessee has always hit a good bit, but usually in one-on-one situations.